His mouth is sweetness; yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.
Song of Songs 5:16 (WEB)
She Called Him Her Friend
The board above the door at a small station still shows the train that left. A woman reads it twice with her coat already buttoned, then drops onto the bench and sets her bag on her knees. At the far end of the room a man is explaining the whole thing into his phone, and when he gets to the person who’ll drive out for him in the morning, he says her name and stops there. Whatever else he thinks of her stays with him. The heater is loud, and the only other person in the room isn’t listening anyway.
In Song of Songs, a woman is describing the man she loves to a group of other women. She works through him feature by feature, runs out of things to compare him to, and tells them he’s altogether lovely. He’s her beloved, she says, and he’s her friend.
None of it is aimed at him. She isn’t saying it to him, she’s saying it to the daughters of Jerusalem, and the name she gives him in front of them is friend.
I can’t back this up with anything, and I’d say it anyway: most of the good people see in each other gets said where the person isn’t. The man at the far end is still on the phone, and so far her name is all of her that’s made it into the call. Say the good thing where other people can hear it. Use the words you’d use if the person were standing there.
At the station, the man finishes his call and starts another one. The woman moves down the bench toward the heater, and the board above the door still shows the train that’s gone.
A Prayer to Remember
The person I’ve known longest hears the least from me about what he’s worth. You’ve seen what he does when it costs him, God, and you’ve never needed a word from me to know it. Do him good today in a way he can feel. Let it reach him whether or not anyone tells him where it came from.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
